[00:00] Valerie: Rise, Renew, Reconnect. Welcome to from the Ashes, a podcast where every episode ignites hope and healing. This week, I have the honor of welcoming one of my very own vibrant, visionary collective members to the show, Joseph Dowd. Born in South Korea and raised in the United States as an adoptee, Joseph grew up exploring cosmology, comparative mythology, and environmentalism. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, he fell in love with philosophy and went on to earn his master's and PhD in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine. He now teaches philosophy at California State University, San Bernardino, and is the author of Introduction to Asian Philosophy, a textbook on early Chinese, Buddhist, and Hindu philosophy. We're going to be diving deep into one of my favorite combinations of topics, healing, psychedelics, and, of course, philosophy. Joseph came to me at a tumultuous time in his life and has gracefully agreed to share his experiences, navigating his trials and tribulations and. And the many powerful insights he has gained along the way.
[01:01] Joseph: And the fire in the darkest night of Phoenix Birds it's ready for flight Shadows may come try to tear you apart but you're the flame. Well, I'm glad to be here. Yeah.
[01:16] Valerie: We're gonna probably take this conversation all sorts of places today, but one of the things that I've learned about you through our time together so far is that you are fairly experimental, actually, in your own healing process. And I'd love to dive into some of what you have done over the past year to get to where you are today. And maybe what might help is actually painting a picture of where you were when you first started the work with me and how, you know, what has evolved since then. So I'll let you have the floor.
[01:51] Joseph: Yeah. Well, in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm still dealing with a lot of the same stuff I was then. In a lot of ways, I feel like my whole outlook has changed. So it's pretty complicated. I'd say that what I was dealing with back then was just a really extreme frustration with how my life was going and this. The sense that kind of everything was always going wrong for me. There some chronic health issues I was dealing with. Insomnia was a big one. Still is something that I struggle with, and also just the sense that, like, things felt like they were always going wrong for me and that I could never catch a break and. And also, whenever anything did go wrong, I would get really frustrated and, you know, just feel like this was one more example of my life being sabotaged. So that. That's pretty much what I was dealing with when you and I met.
[03:09] Valerie: Up until that point, you know, you reported to me how many different things you've tried. So give us a picture of that and, like, maybe in your own words, tell me why you feel like that was not working.
[03:23] Joseph: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I had tried some pharmaceuticals. Actually, I didn't try as many different pharmaceuticals as some people might have before turning to, like, other healing modalities, which I guess connects with your point about me kind of being a bit experimental, you know, But I definitely had tried some pharmaceuticals. I had tried psychedelics, A. A couple different kinds of psychedelics along with, know, the stuff that you're supposed to do with those, like psychedelic assisted therapy and psychedelic coaching, that kind of thing. I had done cbti, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which is, like, the gold standard for insomnia treatment. I was working, and I'm still working with a psychotherapist. So, yeah, I. I had. I tried quite a few things. I'd. I'd even done some really. Just kind of some experience, some experimenting with myself. Like, try, like, just, you know, seeing, okay, what will happen if I meditate for an hour every morning? And I did that for, like, three years straight, meditating for an hour every morning. What. What would happen if I just lay down and, like, once a day and just tried just not to control myself at all? Like, if my body twitches or even if I, like, make noises or something, like, just let that happen. Let. Let whatever happens happen? What, like, what will. Like, will I. Will I release some kind of tension or something? Those are the big ones that stand out. But, yeah, I experimented with quite a bit.
[05:31] Valerie: So to give everyone an idea, there's this. I think this is a fairly common experience with a lot of people who deal with chronic health issues, whether they be physical or mental or both, it doesn't really matter. But a lot of the times we fall into a pattern of trying everything and nothing working or something working temporarily and then it falling off and then going back to the same pattern. This is something that I observe kind of like, across the board with people who are trying to bring real healing to their lives and not just even, you know, get rid of the symptoms. In your perspective, what do you think was missing from that approach?
[06:24] Joseph: I think maybe the best example is this cbti, the cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia that I tried. So when I started out with that, I actually started to get some. What seemed like some really good progress in terms of improvements in my sleep. But then at a certain point, I Don't remember exactly what happened, but it was kind of this disruption. And then after that, you know, I, like, I kind of lost my progress, and I didn't seem to be getting it back. And I. I think really what happened there was. There's this kind of chronic sense of fragility, the sense that any healing I got was just fragile and anything could mess it up. So I didn't really have any trust in my own ability to heal. I. You, You. You with your first question you asked, you know, why do I think I haven't. Like. Like what I was doing wasn't working. And I think that was maybe the big thing. You know, everything I tried, I. Instead of becoming something that built me up so that maybe I wouldn't need it anymore, it just became a nut. It became another practice that I felt like, well, I have to do this just to sustain where I am or. Or things will get even worse or if I make some progress, you know, there's nothing permanent about that. I'm just going to. You know, if. If anything goes slightly wrong, I'm gonna. I'm gonna lose that. And I think that that sense of being unsafe, that, like, my life or the world is just inherently unsafe, I think that was. That one still is kind of the. The big challenge that I face.
[08:35] Valerie: All right, so let's get into a little bit of the work we've been doing in the collective and then just a little bit of theory behind it. And I want to hear your experience and what your perspective is on this, because when you say fragility and lack of safety, a lot of the times this is pointing to an actual real lack of resilience. And there's nothing wrong with that per se. Right. But it is some. It is a reality that we do need to acknowledge, because when we could acknowledge a reality, we can do something about it.
[09:15] Joseph: Yeah.
[09:16] Valerie: So. Yes.
[09:17] Joseph: Yeah. Well, there is a real lack of resilience or there. There has been in my life just because of maybe two or three, you know, let's. Let's. Let's narrow it down to two major kind of chronic health problems. And now. Now those. Those problems themselves, I. I think probably stem from this. This kind of constant sense of insecurity. And if I could just completely let go of that, I'd probably be fine. But I mean, when you've been struggling with a couple of chronic health problems, a big one is sleep. Is sleep issues when you just lie down every night and you have no idea whether you're going to fall asleep right away. Or lie in bed the whole night, you have no idea. If you fall asleep right away, if you're going to get a decent amount of sleep, or if you're going to wake up after an hour and not be able to get back to the. If you, if there's just complete uncertainty about that, well, that is a kind of unsafety, right? Because we need sleep. Sleep. I remember reading a couple of articles or about seeing a couple of articles about how maybe it was the World Health Organization was saying that they thought sleep should be considered a human right because it's so essential to health. I mean, I'm not sure how you didn't force that human right, but that's, you know, that's how important it was. They're saying.
[10:57] Valerie: And I think this, this actually is in line with the ayurvedic three pillars of health. Sleep is one of the three pillars. We focus so much on food. And I think it's because a lot of us take sleep for granted. But it's, it's not just sleep. I think there is this idea of rest that's very important. Some people might not sleep a lot, but if they are able to get good rest, that can really help them restore and feel safe and feel supported. But a lot of these, like, pillars of health is really pointing to how do we allow our, our bodies and minds to continue being supported in life. And restoration is one of them, nourishment is the other. Right. And then the other is kind of like the safety of the environment itself. And so, yes, when, when one of the pillars is not being attended to or is not functioning properly, it's a real threat. And so that's why I say it's like, it's important to acknowledge this as a real threat and do something about it. And it's not like when I say threat, it's not like, oh, I gotta run away from something, or, you know, I have to panic about it. But really, when we're able to look at it, be like, okay, this is a problem that is there. How do I solve it? Then we can start to think of it more like a scientist would. It's like, okay, maybe we could tweak some things here, tweak some things there, and then just be curious about how we can make it better. But there's something that you said about this that is really, that's really resonant in that you continue to face these issues and yet there's something about you right now that's very different from when we started this seven Months ago. That shows me that the resilience is building. I mean, the fact that you can laugh about it a little bit more, the fact that you do get some, some more nights of sleep or just, or moments of relaxation. And I want to hear what your perspective is on this because the work isn't done, but maybe, maybe what is occurring to you now is that maybe the work isn't going to be done, but that doesn't mean it's not productive.
[13:28] Joseph: Sure. Yeah. So that's, that's definitely part of it. I mean, I guess the, the way I'd put it is I'm, I'm getting a more, more perspective. I, I guess that for a long time I've been looking for some kind of big breakthrough that will kind of release the tension that I know is there, I know is keeping me awake, I know is, you know, causing some other health issues and just kind of stress and mood issues. For me. I was looking for some big breakthrough and I think, you know, some of the, you know, what I would call psychological breakthroughs in the past, a couple of them due to like, kind of intentional healing modalities that I pursued. Probably, maybe the, the, the two most profound or at least profound seeming ones happening. Well, not intentionally, but I think those breakthrough experiences kind of, maybe they, they, I mean they were meaningful and informative in their own way, but I think they kind of skewed my perspective in a way and made me think, okay, I, I, I need to get a real break, you know, not, not one that's going to kind of where the high is going to fade away, you know, after a while, but just like, like what has happened with those, those past breakthroughs, but one where, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's not as intense but, but it's longer lasting or, or maybe it's like so intense it just rewires everything. But that's what I've been looking for for a long time. A big breakthrough or a big transformation. And I'm not saying that a big breakthrough isn't possible, but I, I've been realizing that perfection is not possible. And I've been, you know, realizing, you know, I think that, you know, I've had, and probably a lot of people have this, this misconception where they feel that, you know, if they could only get this or that, like, if I could only get eight hours of sleep every night and also have it like so locked in that I don't have to worry about it, like, I just know I'm going to get Eight hours sleep. I, if I get, have that and you know, I, I've, as you know, I've had issues with constipation like for a very long time, right. If, if that were gone, like if those two things were cleared up and let's say, I don't know, I was a little bit more successful in some other areas of my life. If all of that was lined up, then I would just feel, have that kind of special feeling all the time that, that you, that you get when you overcome some difficulty or you were sick and then you get well. And I'm, and I realized, you know, that's just, that's not possible because, I mean, there's research on this. I don't know if you've heard of the hedonic treadmill.
[16:48] Valerie: I have, but I don't remember. So can you remind me?
[16:51] Joseph: Okay, so it's this concept in psychology. You know, if you're running on a treadmill, you have to keep running because if you stop running, you're going to go backwards. Right. And the idea with the hedonic treadmill is that you have to keep pursuing new improvements in your life to keep your happiness above your baseline. The idea is that you have this kind of baseline level of happiness. It's different for different people, but you have this baseline and, and good things happening in your life can raise your happiness above that baseline, but then you get used to those improvements and you drop back down. And so to keep it above the baseline, you have to keep pursuing new improvements. And you know, I was realizing that like if I got certain improvements in my life, I might be physically healthier, I might be richer, I might even be genuinely happier. Like on a kind of a day to day basis I might have like more joy, more enjoyment in my life. But is that, is that we're happening every day? Like, let's say that every day I were doing something that I just really loved and brought me a lot of joy. Okay, well, that, that would be great. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love that, but I'd eventually get used to that, get used to having that in my life. And so I might, it might feel happier. It wouldn't feel special anymore, it would just feel normal. And so, you know, I, it's impossible to have a life, to have a life that just constantly feels special. And, and I think, you know, I'm not fully there yet, but I think just to, to fully accept that, that there's nothing out there that's going to make me feel Special, permanently. I think that that's probably the key to a certain, a certain kind of inner peace.
[18:51] Valerie: All right, there are a couple of threads that I want to pull on here, but I think what you're pointing to right now is equanimity. I think a lot of times the word bliss is thrown out there and it's misinterpreted. We go for this a lot of people meditate, but for example, trying to find bliss. But bliss isn't some kind of high feeling. It's actually this sense of peace. And, but peace cannot live too high or low. And because of that the fluctuation isn't there. So if we bring it back to something like yoga philosophy, right, we have the three qualities or gunas. And so there's a, there's the, the place of darkness and ignorance, which is tamas, we call that tamas. And it's a very like narrow minded way of, of existing. But then you have this like up and down, up and down, which I think most people are in, where life goes really, really high and then goes really, really low. And you're just riding the waves emotionally, physically. Everything is kind of like just everything's dramatic. People don't realize that when they're up high in a mania. Yeah, it's, it's not a safe balance. The real equanimity comes when you can understand these, these waves of emotion and ways of existence and the lows and the highs and then, and then reach a sense of understanding behind all of it. That's the clarity that comes through that we call sattva. And in the state of clarity and sattva and peace, waves are going to wear down at your walls. But this kind of calmness is going to help you build it back up. And in calmness also there's safety, right? Because you could see it's not where, where you're living down in darkness and you can't see anything and everything feels, everything feels unsafe. It's that you can see everything for what it is and not be so subject to the highs and lows. There is one point here I think I want to make with the story that you've shared is that resilience and looking for the one thing or the one solution to all of your suffering is like trying to build back years and years of wearing down through one action. But the thing about resilience is it's like a wall that needs to be built brick by brick. No wall is going to be constructed in a day. No strong wall anyway, right. It needs it needs careful layering and building up, and that simply can't happen in a peak experience.
[21:33] Joseph: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I can't tell you how frustrating it's been for me to have had peak experiences. I, I, I told you that I, I did some psychedelic assisted therapy. And you know, the thing about psychedelics is you, you never quite know what you're going to get out of a given psychedelic experience. But a couple of times I've had, you know, very intense breakthroughs and, you know, I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have these breakthroughs where I feel blissed out, I feel enlightened, basically. And, and also my, my mindset changes where, and this is where like some of what I've studied when it comes to like, the more psychologically oriented strands of like Eastern philosophy, like yoga philosophy, and also this, this school of Buddhist philosophy called yogachara really became live to me because I, I, I saw how these kind of, these ingrained kind of unconscious mental habits, you know, what, or kind of impressions, grooves that in yoga philosophy are called samskaras. Right. How those, those kind of color or structure, how I experience, you know, my everyday experience. You know, I, it's funny, you know, as I said, I was telling you that, you know, at the time we met, one of the big problems I was struggling with, and I still struggle with a lot, is it feels like, you know, it's just, I can't get a break. Like, it just like things always go wrong at the worst possible moments and I don't understand why. And, and during the kind of the bliss periods after these peak experiences, I didn't experience that at all. I like, everything just seemed to flow. I didn't, there didn't seem to be any problems. Now I, I don't think that I gained some kind of magic ability to ward off bad luck. I think what happened was temporarily I just stopped negatively interpreting my experience. And so, you know, I did, I didn't, I just wasn't interpreting things as problems. And so, yeah, I can't tell you to go back to what I was saying. I can't tell you how frustrating it, it's been to just to get these transformative experiences. And then despite doing all the integration work you're supposed to do, like talking to someone, journaling that kind of just see myself slip back into these negative patterns. So you're right, you know, healing can't just come from a peak experience. It's a very long journey. I mean, that's not to say at all that the peak experiences I've had and the work that I've done through those haven't contributed to the progress that I've seen, but it's, it's been a very slow kind of unfolding, I think, for me.
[24:57] Valerie: Yeah. So let's talk about peak experiences and their role in what I would call evolution or transformation or healing. Because I, this is where I think a lot of people invest a lot of their money and, but hit the strongest walls. So like you said, peak experiences play a significant role because what peak experiences provide are insight, insight you wouldn't otherwise get in your everyday life because you're putting yourself in a different environment, different people, and you're more open than to reinterpretation. Right. And to experiencing something differently. But the problem is that if you go to a retreat or if you go to a psychedelic experience, you're going to have that experience there. Then you're going to go back to your old environment.
[25:59] Joseph: Right.
[25:59] Valerie: And without practices. And so it makes sense then, then you're just riding that high and low again. So then the question becomes, well, how do we take advantage of what we've experienced in a peak experience environment and then bring it back to our everyday and continue to practice and reinforce? Because ultimately our machine, our brain, is going to bring us back to the negative interpretations. And it's doing that by design. Because what the brain wants us to, wants to do is keep us safe, but it's keeping us safe in a very specific way.
[26:40] Joseph: Yeah, definitely. And I, I, I think you're spot on when you say that the value of peak experiences lies in the insights that you get from them. You know, I, after the first ayahuasca ceremony that I attended, I really had this sense, this very clear sense that there were certain things I needed to do. And I actually didn't really have a sense that like I was healed or that my life was going to be significantly better subjectively from then on. I just had the, this really strong conviction there are certain things I ought to do for others and for myself. Like certain people I needed to apologize to certain changes I needed to make in my life. And I actually, to my credit, I really did try to like, make a list and do those things, like actually check them off as I did them. Now, I think there's a lesson here, both like kind of in two different ways. One is it's really useful when you get something like that out of a peak experience because then you can do something and you can see the improvement in your life concretely. Sometimes it's only like kind of a minor improvement. One of the insights I got was I have this car that's really beat up and some parts of it don't even work very well anymore and it's expensive, but I just need to get a new car or a new used car. So sometimes the improvement is just kind of minimal. The other side of this though is, well, just to use the common metaphor, rearranging the depth chairs on the Titanic. That's not gonna save the Titanic. And if you get really specific, like okay, I need to start cleaning my apartment more often, let's say that's one of your. Okay, that's great, do that, definitely do that. But that's not gonna, you know, that's not going to fix your life, you know. And so you can get into this fall, into this trap. I think of thinking, okay, well the, the path to healing is to have these peak experiences to extract some kind of lesson from them and then to just concretely apply that. And that's going to, you know, that's going to cure your depression or something. As I know. I think it's exactly what you said. This is one, one tool that can be helpful. And the way it's helpful is it gives you or can. There's no way to predict, but it can give you these insights that you can then apply. But that doesn't get to like just day to day non peak practices that you need to implement to just regulate yourself. Right. Aside from making concrete improvements.
[30:07] Valerie: All right, so this is a perfect segue because I do want to, to really get into your most recent ayahuasca experience. But before we do that because, and I want to get into it because it was different from all the ones that you've had before because of what we've been doing in the past half year. And one of the things that we are about to do again is this kind of so called detox or reset. And that's how we started this work. And then we did another rendition of that in the spring and now we're going to do a summer one. These are not sexy. They're not, they're not easy. Right. They're not, they're not what I would call peak experience. They require hard concentration, work and sometimes sacrifice of things that you think are fun. So and it, you know, people think that it's just about diet and like cleaning your body. It's not. When we do a reset or detox, what we're actually doing is implementing the habits that we are resisting sometimes. And the practices that we would need to create our own ability to heal. Right. Our own ability to move forward. And again, about the regulation, the daily regulation, a lot of us neglect the daily regulation, regulation of the body. And because of the society that we live in now, especially where we have tons of distractions to take a week, two weeks, three weeks, to just make sure you're eating really clean and getting good, rest as much as you can is a good way to recalibrate. So I want to hear about your experiences with this, because as far as the work we've been doing, the collective, and seeing how you have progressed, I see that you have made probably the most shift, lasting shifts through those experiences. But I want to hear your perspective on it.
[32:21] Joseph: Okay. Yeah. Now, when you say through those experiences, do you mean through the peak experiences I've had, or do you mean through like the detoxes and the other practices that we've done in the collective?
[32:33] Valerie: Yeah, just the simple things like the kitchari or the green smoothie or anything else that we've done. Why are those different from peak experiences?
[32:43] Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so I'll just say straight out, and I think I've told you this before, I think really one big aspect of what I get with the collective is the community just having other people on the journey with me or on their own journeys with me. I think that's supportive to see that there are other people who, you know, are having struggles too and are, you know, working on them and, and. But I think what's different about the practices in the collective is they're. I mean, they're very explicitly designed not to be these kind of really intense peak experiences like the detox you do. I remember when I was on the. The Ayahuasca retreat in Peru that I did just recently, some people were worried about getting parasites in Peru. I don't think I got parasites, but some people were worried about that. And one person was suggesting, oh, hey, you need to do this. Try this product that she tried, this really intense one day cleanse product where you take it and then you completely just flush out your system. And apparently she got really great results with that. But, you know, like, the, the cleanses, the detoxes that we've done, they're not like that where you, like, hit your body really hard and. No, they're like, you know, you maybe you fast a little bit each day or you eat only kitchari for a few days, like something like that, where it's. And I think really requires a kind of trust in Your own ability to heal. Right. It's not like this pill that you're taking that's going to fix you from without. It's like, okay, I'm going to be a little gentler on my body, or maybe with the fast, a little more demanding on my body, and I'm trusting that my body kind of knows what it's doing. So I'd say that's the big difference.
[34:55] Valerie: Okay. And that's a big question for me is because in the beginning of this conversation, you were saying that you actually didn't have trust in yourself. How did you. Well, okay, and you do mention this, like, the role of the collective and the community. Did that have anything to do with the trust you. Were you somehow mustered up to do the detox, or is there something else that happened?
[35:23] Joseph: Well, the, you mean the Kitchri detox? Because that wasn't. Yeah, I mean, it was great, but I wouldn't say I needed a lot of courage to do.
[35:34] Valerie: I think the whole idea, though, of, like, doing these is that because you just said, like, they do require some kind of trust in your body's own ability to heal, that I think you did say earlier that that was missing, Prior.
[35:49] Joseph: Yeah. Well, I think that it actually goes back to something else you've talked about in our meetings, the collective meetings. You've, you said at one point that, you know, sometimes people have to reach a point where they become sick enough with how they've been thinking that they just realize, like, no matter what, they just, they have to let go of that old way and, and change. No matter how much of, no matter how much it means, like, giving up their old identity or their old sense of, like, how they think and who they are, they just, they're so miserable with how things are going that they realize they need to change. And now I haven't gotten to the, okay, I'm going to, you know, move to Nepal version of that, but I've gotten, I, I, I think I've gotten to the point where, you know, I've, I've, like, I, I, I did the Kitchri diet, and, like, even though it was a big change from how I normally eat, not in a bad way, but it was just a big, big change. Nothing went wrong. Like, you know, and seeing that and also seeing how when I do everything right, like, I, I follow my, I try to follow my routine, my schedule that I very carefully crafted, I, I don't mess around with my diet. Like, I eat the same thing that I've been eating, you know, before every day, which by the way is pretty healthy, so that's okay. But I, like, I, I, I, you know, I, I don't try weird detoxes or anything. I, and, and just seeing how even when I do that and I, and I don't make any changes and I try to keep everything very safe. Right. I'll still just randomly like, like something tiny, like a, just a tiny change in my schedule will throw things off, like, or, you know, my sleep will seem like it's improving. And then, you know, I'll have a big setback and just seeing how I can make relatively big changes like the kitchen diet, and that doesn't hurt anything. And also I can try to be very safe and protect myself and not make changes. And I can still get messed up just seeing that. I think it gives you this perspective where I realize, okay, the problem isn't with my body's ability to regulate or heal. That was never the problem. Because if that, if that were the problem, the solution would just be to be like, yeah, again, very, very cautious, you know, figure out what works for me, never deviate from that, never do any special diets, anything like, and just protect my body. But that, but that, that doesn't protect me. And on the other hand, being experimental, trying big changes, that doesn't break me. So the problem is not with my body's ability to heal, it's with my mind. And it's always, the problem has always been my mind. I'm not saying there isn't like maybe a bodily cause, some bodily causes to that mental dysregulation, but the, like, we might not have time to talk about this, but I, I recently like started seeing a physical therapist and a, a, a chiropractor just to get their perspective on some things. And there is something weird going on with my, like my, my musculoskeletal system so that the, like and the body affects the mind. Right. So I'm not saying there aren't bodily like somatic reasons for this, for the psychological challenges, but it's, it, it comes down to psychology, it comes down to my mind. That's, that's the problem.
[39:45] Valerie: Yeah, yeah. And just for anyone out there who is listening to this, like, I am also stuck in this rut, like I'm no different. It's just that I've built a lot of self awareness around it so that when I sink back into negative thinking, I just get a little bit faster at being like, you gotta let go of this. It's like suffering enough. It's actually that you get to decide when you suffer enough. You actually get to choose. It's just that people, like, wait really, really long until they choose differently the first time. But when you. When you realize that you actually can choose to let go, then that can become a habit in itself. And that doesn't mean that the suffering goes away. It just means that you gain more agency to say, I'm going to try something different. Which is what you're. You're saying with the experimentation.
[40:57] Joseph: Okay. Yeah, actually, I think I didn't really answer your. The question you'd asked, which was, you know, how my perspective had shifted. And I think, you know, like, what, what happened was. Yeah, I. I saw that it wasn't like. It's not like my body is broken. Like, I. Like I said, I've been, you know, like, sleep deprived for most of my life, and yet somehow I'm still chugging along, right? And I'm still like, you know, like, going to the gym. It's just like I'm. I'm still able to do all of that. And so my body is pretty robust. Like, my body is pretty sturdy. It's like, just see, just realizing that it's not that, like, my body doesn't know how to heal and realizing that, okay, it's. This is about my mind tripping me up. Tripping, you know, you know, interfering with my ability to just let go and sleep or, you know, and. Or, you know, let go and, you know, have other things go better for my health. Just seeing that and seeing how miserable I was just winding myself up and tormenting myself or, you know, being tormented by my mind made me realize, okay, I just. I need to change. I need to let go of this, like I said, this ideal of this idea of perfection that I'm just gonna, you know, feel good or feel special all the time. And so more and more I've been finding that, like, negative feelings will come up, frustrations will come up, regrets, you know, even like, real grief. All the same feelings I had before, before you and I started working together. But I'll just kind of be able to accept them for what they are and put a little bit of distance between myself and them and, you know, kind of take up this. This perspective where these are just more things that are just more things I'm experiencing the same way I'm experiencing, you know, the image of you on my laptop screen the same time, the same way I'm experiencing that, like, the feeling of the chair under me. This is one thing I've Noticed a lot recently and this partly came to me through a peak experience I had. If you have an intense emotion, just like stop and ask yourself, like, what am I actually feeling? What is the actual sensation going on right now? And you'll notice it's actually, it's a, it's a physical sensation. Like there's a bodily sensation. You know, like, it might be like a tightness or like a, or something, but there's like that, that emotion. You're feeling it. It's actually this like physical sensation. And really noticing that I've been able to kind of be less caught up in the emotion because it's like, oh, this is just like, like having an ache in my arm or something. Okay. So it's just there. It's just this feeling that's there and. Okay, it's just a feel. It's just this, this, this physical sensation. Okay, well, I can deal with that. So. Yeah, that, that's. I think that's one big perspective shift that's happening.
[44:37] Valerie: All right, so I don't want to, I want to let you tell your story about the ayahuasca. So bef. But just real quick because it is really interesting what you said about it's all the mind. Ayurveda definitely agrees. But in. I don't know if you know who Brian Johnson is. The, he's like the don't die guy. So basically he's trying to. He's like this big tech guy. He has tons of money and he's invested probably millions of. Of dollars into optimizing his body to de. Age.
[45:08] Joseph: Oh, I've. Oh, I think I've heard of this. Yeah.
[45:11] Valerie: Well, the big story is right now is that he's done all this stuff and he now has a gut eating autoimmune disease.
[45:19] Joseph: Oh, no.
[45:20] Valerie: Yeah. So he's, you know, he's optimized his body. Like really. Like, he looks a lot younger than he is. He's in his 50s, I think. But he's been super open about his whole process in all of this. But he is kind of like very obsessed with not dying and like this optimization of health and like anything like you know, going out in the sun or like on an airplane, everything is like, you know, he, he doesn't like it because he knows scientifically it's not good for the aging process. But he's all caught up in this. And I, I just think it's very interesting that in spite of all of his efforts to optimize his physical body, his gut is now eating itself yeah, yeah. But if you were to look at his social media feed, like, you could tell that there's a lot of conflict sometimes that's going on up in here. And we don't think about that stuff as much. And we don't consider even, just even the. Even one layer deeper than mental is spiritual. And Ayurveda actually has a really interesting way of looking at the causes of disease because they have the three causes. Those are all on the psychological level. None of them are physical. Like, none of them point to, oh, you're not eating well enough, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those come after the. Any consideration of the mental. But then there is even one more layer deeper that they call the primordial cause of disease. And that is of. It's just like one simple sentence, but it's something like forgetting the true nature of self. So, yeah, just with all that in mind, I think it's just like food for thought and just some interesting things that I'm seeing going on in the ecosystem right now with a lot of the biohacking and like wanting to, to live forever is that there are just certain things that we can't necessarily escape. But with that being said, let's go into your ayahuasca experience. Your mindset going into it, because that was quite different from your previous ones. And then like, what were the insights this time that you got out of that?
[47:25] Joseph: Okay, so I think it's helpful here to talk about the. Also the ayahuasca ceremony. This was a while back, but that I had. The most recent one I had before going into the retreat that I went to in Peru. So this one, I'd had a couple of other ceremonies with this group, not the Peru group that I. This other group. And you know, the, the, the first two I, I went to, I, I had this attitude, well, I'm going to go in the medicine. The, the ayahuasca is going to do whatever it's going to do and hopefully it'll bring up some stuff that I need to deal with and then I'll just deal with that. However. Seems right. But so, so I went in with this kind of glum attitude, like feeling, you know, which isn't a problem, you know, you arrive however you are, but I went in with this kind of glum attitude. And then I'd have these, the ayahuasca experience. The, the last one I did with that other group before I went on the Peru retreat, I actually went in with a different mindset. I think it's partly due to the work I've been doing with the collective. I just, I went in with a more positive mindset. And it's, it's strange because actually the really kind of painful events in my life and kind of a few of them had happened, you know, not that long ago, but I, I kind of managed to. You say, okay, I'm going to be positive. So in this tradition, which is different from the Peru, the tradition that I worked with in Peru, they have this kind of very energetic music that they play in the ceremony. And I, I actually. And some people, like a couple of people, a couple of their regulars would get up and dance, you know, to the music. And after I drank the ayahuasca, but before it kicked in for me, I actually thought, well, why don't I dance? So I got up and I was dancing and that's finally it, it started to take effect and I lay down and then I had, boom. Like I, I had a, one of my peak experiences. And I think it's, it's helpful to maybe contrast this with what happened during the Peru trip because it was, it was very different. So with this, the. What happened was I, at first I started feeling a lot of old regrets or one specific very painful regret that had been a theme before for me. And I just felt, oh, am I gonna have to just live with this for the rest of my life? Is this just a permanent wound? And. But then I, and you know, normally when you have negative feelings like that, what people will tell you to do. And at least in some versions of like yoga teachings, they'll say this, you know, try to detach from the feeling. Kind of put some distance between yourself and feeling like, like what, what? I told you I'd been practicing, right? Or I've been practicing recently, but. And just realize that you are not the thought, you know, I am not the thought. I am not my thoughts. I am the awareness that watches the thoughts. But then I had this kind of epiphany. I realized, well, wait a minute. The part that says I is always the mind, right? And I, if I think I am not my thoughts, that's a thought, right? So both the thought, the negative thoughts that I'm trying to escape from and detach from, and the I that's trying to escape from them, those are both thoughts, right? So if, if even the I, if even my I is my, my so called self is a thought, if, if it's all thoughts, if it's all just part of this show that that awareness is watching, well, why not let the show go On. And so instead of the I trying to detach from the thoughts, this time the I. I actually had this image of a kind of embracing, like, the. The grief. And when I did that, when I embraced the grief, something flipped. And I had all these. I really had insights, like, clear insights that I can put in plain English, like, that a lot of people care about me and that I should be able to love myself and that I'm fine just the way I am. And all these, you know, wonderful, beautiful insights. Okay, so that was great. Now, what. What happened during the Peru retreat was very different. I don't know if it was partly the medicine that, like, a difference in the brew. I was working this time with the Shatibo tradition, which is what a lot of people consider kind of like almost the source, like, if you want to really do authentic ayahuasca work, the Shipibo tradition from the Amazon. And not that there aren't other indigenous Shipibo traditions, but anyway, I was working with the Shipi. Other indigenous ayahuasca traditions, but I was working with the Shipibo tradition. And so I don't know if it had to do with the brew, but I. The. The medicine, this time, it felt intensely somatic, like the ayahuasca experiences I'd had before. I was actually surprised how. How much. It was just, like, thoughts coming up, like, maybe things I didn't want to face, I was being forced to face. But this time, I, like, I just. It felt like, ugh, like I felt ill. I felt physically ill. It felt like it was working on my body. And. And I had five of those five ceremonies. By the time I got to the fifth, I was feeling like, okay, I. I'm not going to do this for a while after. After today, this is. This is putting my body through the wringer. And so that was a major difference, just how much of, like, a bodily experience it was. And I did have maybe a couple of real. What felt like real insights, but they were, you know, it wasn't like every ceremony, but I had, like, what I can really clearly say was a. An insight. It was, you know, one or two throughout. So it was operating on a very different level. I know I'm sure you have other questions, but I'll leave it there, and you can pick on whatever thread you want.
[54:12] Valerie: I mean, I think what's most interesting to me is the emergence of a somatic experience after all of this and the lack of insight. Maybe sometimes that's not what we need, is more insight. Right? So I would like to hear. Well, then what was, what were the things that you've realized through this experience?
[54:36] Joseph: Okay, so. Well, first I'll mention the, the one thing that I can clearly say wasn't insight and, but it was different from the insights I'd gotten from the, from previous ayahuasca experiences. Previous ayahuasca experiences. Outside of that retreat, I'd gotten like, these. I'd kind of been confronted with issues that I already knew about. Like, it's not like they were some deep buried childhood trauma or something. They're just like, yeah, I, I know I'm sad about this. And I, you know, the medicine is just kind of pushing my face into it and forcing me to confront it. But this one of, during one of the ceremonies during the retreat, what happened was I realized that a scene from a horror cartoon, the Extreme Ghostbusters, it was like a 1997 cartoon. I don't know if you heard of it, but yeah, a scene from one of those episodes had actually, I guess, really disturbed me when I was a kid and I watched it and I hadn't had any idea that this had been bothering me. It was like this splinter that was just like buried in there. It really felt as if something reached into me and brought this up to the light, brought it into the light of consciousness. And once I did that, I had this feeling like, okay, splinter's out. And then I purged a lot. I, like, I just vomited, you know, a huge amount. So much that staff got kind of worried. They brought me water so I wouldn't get dehydrated. So, yeah, that, that was an insight. That was definitely an insight. I think, reflecting back on how somatic the experiences overall were. I think really if I'm going to draw some kind of insight from that, I think I connect it to what I, I, I've experienced recently. Just, I think actually last night I didn't, I didn't sleep that great. But before that, two nights in a row, I had like, really good sleep. At least for me, like, outstandingly good sleep. And the second day after getting those two really good nights of sleep, I was like, wow, I, I feel like, I mean, I, I, I just wasn't, I wasn't tormented. Like, I, yeah, I still had the same, you know, regrets and stuff, but I just, I was kind of okay with, with them. And I was really, wow, this is what it feels like to just have gotten consecutive nights of good sleep. And I, and I, I, I think what that speaks to is that again, this emerging realization that I'm not like physically broken. My body is fine. Like, you know, and. And really, if I. I think if my body were really well regulated, I think that would, you know, I. I think that would be a game changer for me. I think, you know, in terms of my emotional well being now, there's kind of a chicken and egg problem here, right? Because emotional turmoil, I think is the reason I'm having trouble sleeping, having these other bodily issues. But it really made me realize, like, how crucial, how central the somatic aspect is.
[58:29] Valerie: All right, so I'm going to pull on that thread. Almost literally here is. Have you seen Spirited Away?
[58:36] Joseph: Yes.
[58:37] Valerie: Okay, so there are two scenes that I'm thinking of right now that speak to this. There's almost like a. That that image of pulling the thorn out leads to a release, literally for you. Actually, you start. You did a massive vomiting, right? Literally all the stuff came out and then you were able to let go. Actually, that's what Ayurvedic detox is also built upon. The panchakarmas is a lot about that purging. But that aside, the scenes in Spirited Away that I'm looking at are the one with the river spirit that was so polluted and Sen had to go in, she pulled the bicycle out and everything just came out of all of the pollution. All of the junk came out. And he was finally able to literally sigh, like give a sigh of relief and fly away. And the other scene actually is maybe even more poignant is the scene where Kawanashi, the no face, where he's like just eating, eating, eating, eating, eating. And he walks up to Sen, he's offering her this gold. She doesn't want it. And it's. It's almost devastating to him because he like, his whole. At that time, like, he's just consumed by this greed of like holding on, holding on, giving more. This is. This is like a classic actually. Kapha imbalance is like you. You want to hold on to more so that you can be of use to others. And you're trying to give away this, like, accumulation, but to someone who doesn't have that attachment to that accumulation, it doesn't have any value. And so he ends up again, purging, right? All of this. I. I don't remember. Oh, it was the soap thing, I think, that made him purge. No, it's not the soap. Something made him purge.
[01:00:31] Joseph: I don't. I know he. That they did wash. Wash them off. Right. And you.
[01:00:38] Valerie: That was the river spirit.
[01:00:39] Joseph: Okay, the river spirit. Yeah.
[01:00:40] Valerie: So Koshi, I don't remember what exactly made him purge. It might be that he just ate too much and then just let go of all of it. But there's always this kind of breaking point or a thorn that needs to be pulled out, or if you're sick of your own stuff and you eat too much and you just have to let go, and then you're back to yourself.
[01:01:01] Joseph: Yeah.
[01:01:01] Valerie: You're back to this, a clear self. And. Yeah. So, like, I'm looking at your story and how it was that the thorn was kind of like the, the insight from a mental perspective, and then the somatic was the purging. And then the result was like the, the letting go of tension that allowed you for the, the night's rest. Right. And so, you know, that's kind of a peak experience, because what happened.
[01:01:34] Joseph: Yeah, that, that once a peak experience, you know, I, it really felt like something had been healed.
[01:01:44] Valerie: Yeah.
[01:01:45] Joseph: In that thorn being pulled out. Yeah.
[01:01:48] Valerie: But now the challenge is then, is to continue to keep the container clear because the mind will start to wind itself again, and that's when you start to accumulate the tension again.
[01:02:02] Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it. See, I think one thing that speaks to, like, you know, I, I, I go back and forth on how much I want to, how much is doing good for me to invest in what people like to call inner work, you know, because I've done a lot of, you know, I mean, spe. We've talked about, like, trying to kind of put some distance between yourself and your, your feelings and kind of like just sort of like, deal with them. And along those lines, I've. You've probably heard of internal family systems therapy. I've spent a lot of money, too much money on, on some IFS sessions, you know, I've done. I have a current psychotherapist who's, who's great. You know, I, I'm, I'm working with you. I've worked with psychedelic coaches and, you know, there's always this question, like, how much inner work is good? Because, yes, you, you do need to do inner work. You also need to get on with your life and make, you know, actual concrete improvements in your life. Of course, that's what you try to help us do and neglect it. But, yeah, that's, you can't just do inner work. And sometimes I worry that I, I can get so wrapped up in just doing inner work and, like, endlessly analyzing myself that it becomes a trap. And it probably does become a trap for some people, but I think that that experience, like, with that thorn That I didn't even had no inkling had been bothering me, was pulled out. I think that, I think that really made me realize the importance of inner work and inner exploration. Because, you know, a lot of the things that I thought maybe that I theorized were bothering me were I thought, okay, maybe the fact that I'm adopted is a piece of the puzzle for why, like I can't sleep or maybe certain other like, you know, certain bad habits that I have, like, you know, like me, I feel bad about those. Those, those are the reason. But, but none of that has ever come up during, during one of these psychedelic trips. I'm not saying it won't in the future, but hasn't so far. And this random cartoon from my childhood came up. And so I think it really, yeah, it speaks to some amount of inner work is necessary because you can't. Without that, you, you, you, you have no clue what's down there. You have no clue what's actually bothering you. And you can, you can build all these elaborate stories about, okay, it must be this because I, you know, this happened with my parents or blah, blah, blah, you know, and, but you, you know, without doing serious inner work, you, you don't know.
[01:04:50] Valerie: So we're running out of time, so I will just wrap up with a couple of thoughts here. You know, what you're speaking to is actually really important, is that some of this stuff that might need working through also requires you to be more resilient before you actually work through it. A fragile psyche can't work through trauma very well on its own. And so I think what these, the pairing of doing a peak experience and inner work and doing more of the, like the habitual work and the building up and just like the day to day taking care of yourself, they have to go hand in hand so that when it's ready, when the thorn is ready to come out, you'll know. Right. And just building up an instinct for that. But the other part of this is again, you need to live your life. Right. And to not make your life about healing.
[01:05:53] Joseph: Yes,
[01:05:55] Valerie: I think that's really important and for some reason gets really lost in the sauce a little bit when it comes to people who are really into this stuff is that we, we are not meant to be on a constant journey of healing until we die. Yeah. So why don't we finish off here with kind of like what, what is it that you do want to do? You know, given that you have this path now or yeah, you have the tools, you can choose to go on Peak experience. You're in the collective doing the, the day to day like habit building and the detoxes and stuff. And so we have a foundation now. What is that opening up for you that you want to do in order for you to just live your life? Like what, how do you want to live your life? We'll end with that question.
[01:06:45] Joseph: Yeah, well, that's kind of what I'm, what I'm mulling over right now, to be honest. But I'll, I'll tell you two conclusions I've come to. One, I told you during a session that we had with vibrant visionary that I felt I needed to just start pampering myself more. And even I even had this plan like I was going to go to this Korean spa like once a, once a week, you know, from now on. But I think I've modified that plan a little bit because even that could become this thing where it's like, I have to do this, I have to do this or else I'm going to break, you know, or else my healing is going to go away and it's, and no. So I, I, I, I should pamper myself more than I've been doing. I really need to do that. I really need to be nice to myself and give myself a little bit of luxury once in a while. But more in, more in the spirit of, oh, I have some time this week. I have like zero I need to do. So I'm just gonna have fun and do this because it feels good, you know, like more, you know. And I don't need to go to the, that particular Korean spa either. I could, you know, do something else, but just more in the spirit of I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do this because I enjoy it, not as, not turning it into another healing modality. And the other thing is I, you know, I have several projects, like you mentioned my yoga sutras translation that I just, I've been, I have been very, very slowly working on, but I've almost put on hold just because I feel like, oh it, you know, none of this stuff matters until I'm healed and realized no, whether or not I keep trying to heal until I die. I think it's important for me, really important for me not, not to make this too serious or too, I, you know, I think it's, it's important to me. I've just, I've realized is just feel like by the end of my life, feel like I've had things in my life that I value, you know, and now having completed A yoga sutras translation isn't actually one of those big things. That's not, you know, that's not what I'm going to agonize about on my test bed. But I think, but, you know, but just, I realized, okay, I have these open projects that I, that I pretty close to finishing, but I never finish. Okay. I just need to do these things. I need to, like, there are certain things of value that I'm working on that I just need to just. I'm just work on them. Even if I'm feeling, you know, not that great a certain day, maybe I didn't sleep for. I just, Just do it. Just do a little bit of work and get these things done, get these things out so that, you know, I, I can feel that. Okay, yeah, I've, I've done something of value and, and you know, of course that that's not ultimately where my sense of self worth should come from, but I think that just that it would be a. It would be part of kind of that idea of like just getting on with my life and moving forward.
[01:09:57] Valerie: Amazing. All right, well, thank you, Joseph, for coming on today. This is a great conversation and I look forward to having more.
[01:10:05] Joseph: Yeah, definitely. I, you know, I, I really enjoyed this conversation too, and be happy to talk again. Thank you.
[01:10:14] Valerie: Thank you for tuning in to from the Ashes. If what we talked about today resonates, if it feels on point with something you've been ruminating on by yourself, that's exactly why I'm here. From the Ashes exists for people who are tired of pretending life is fine and are ready to explore what it takes to truly embrace the road to who they really are. Every conversation is an honest, unfiltered account of someone's real life and the path they're walking toward. A life they actually align with. If you want to explore this further for yourself, come join me in my vibrant Visionary newsletter. It's a bi weekly letter filled with the Reflections podcast updates and what I'm contemplating between episodes. You can find the link in the show notes below. Thank you so much and I'll see you next time.
